The Mayan culture has long held the imagination of the world. A widespread civilization, with principal cities all across Latin America including present-day Guatemala, El Salvador, and Mexico, they are known for their advanced architecture and astronomy, and of course for the calendar that some people believed predicted the end of the world in 2012. Ironically, the Mayan culture seemed unable to predict its own demise; the civilization declined rapidly around 900 A.D.

Archaeologists have long speculated on what caused this rapid decline, which led to a complete disappearance of the Mayan culture, forgotten for centuries until their temples were unearthed. Now we may be a step closer to finding out what happened, and the clue comes, of all places, from the world’s oceans.

Close to the area where the Mayan culture thrived lies the famous Great Blue Hole, off the coast of Belize. This giant sinkhole, almost completely circular in shape and some 980 feet across and more than 400 feet deep, was formed when an underwater cave collapsed. It is famous for its clear, blue color, and of course for the extreme shift in depth from the surrounding ocean floor to the vertical drop of more than 400 feet. It first gained recognition when Jacques-Yves Cousteau featured it in his TV programs, and today it’s a famed dive spot.

But, as it turns out, the Great Blue Hole can do more than just attract divers. Andre Droxler, a professor of earth science at Rice University in Houston, Texas, recently led an archaeological expedition here, wherein his team collected and analyzed core samples from both inside the blue hole and a number of nearby lagoons. Their findings, which show changes to the mineral compositions in the cores from around 800 to 1,000 A.D. indicate a severe drought, which may have caused the Mayan decline.

Normally, rainfall causes rivers to drive large amounts of fresh water — and with it, mineral sediments — into the ocean near the Blue Hole. Mineral sediments will obviously vary depending on the amount of rainfall; more minerals appear in times of heavy rainfall, less in times of drought.

The recent core samples show a severe drop in titanium, one of the minerals usually deposited during rainy seasons or as an effect of storms, around the time of the Mayan decline. The reduced rainfall would have affected water supply and the fertility of the land, which is likely to have caused unrest in the population, which might in turn help explain why the building activity of the civilization, which had been so prominent until then, suddenly slowed down or stopped altogether.

The hypothesis that the Mayan culture was brought down in part due to severe drought has gathered more and more traction in recent years, with a number of other studies also pointing to this as the explanation. But the core-sample project in the Great Blue Hole is unique in that it’s the first of its kind to, with considerable accuracy, depict the amount of rainfall in the region more than 1,000 years ago — once again, the ocean shows us that it may very well contain the key to unlocking some of the Earth’s greatest mysteries.

Interesting. I will have to examine Google earth for this. Thank you Elbert.As to the underground cave river, I suppose I must look somewhere else for this Kathy?Or are the in essence, one in the same?

You can see it as a dark blue ribbon near water caye off Belize city 17 degrees 20 min. 59.51 sec. by 88 degrees 02 min. 59.22 sec. elevation 10 ft.not a cave just an old river bed below the surface of the sea.